Tufting machines are widely used for manufacturing tufted pile fabrics, such as carpeting. During a tufting operation, a plurality of yarn carrying needles pass though a heavy fabric backing to form loops of yarn below the fabric backing. Loopers or hooks located below the fabric backing are oscillated so as to capture and hold the loops of yarn so that when the needles are withdrawn from the fabric, the loops are held below the fabric backing to form loop pile tufts. Additionally, tufting machines can include knives for cutting the loops of yarns on the loopers or hooks to form cut pile tufts. Conventional level cut loop type tufting machines also can have hundreds of clips that are moveable into engagement with the hooks/loopers to control formation of loop and cut pile tufts in the backing, each of the clips generally being located below and/or behind one of the hooks and moved to an engaging position by an associated actuator. After the yarn is released from the hook or cut by a knife, the fabric can be advanced so that the yarn carrying needles can create the next set of loops in the backing. As a result, the tufting machine can selectively generate both loop and cut pile tufts in the backing material.
Alternatively, tufting machines can be provided with various types of yarn feed control systems, such as scroll or roll attachments, as well as including one or two transversely shifting needle bars for creating various sculptured or graphics patterns. For example, single end yarn feed systems now have been developed for controlling the feeding of individual yarns to create increasingly complex patterns for carpets and rugs.